Pickle Jars
When Rachel handed Dan the pickle jar from their kitchen refrigerator, he never thought that he would be forced into the cave. Sure, old men like Kramer from work, or Brunswick from down the street, fat and tired from lives spent pushing paper and drinking cocktails on soft couches, might find the fate of the cave inescapable, but Dan, a fairly young man, a healthy man, a man who went to the gym three times a week — no, this could not, would not, should not have happened to him.
Was it a manufacturing error, perhaps? He banged the lid against the counter, as Rachel’s face grew creased with worry. Was it a trick of humidity and condensation? He ran the jar under hot water.
Rachel’s eyes closed: she could not bear to watch the strong, resourceful man she loved struggle like this. She began to cry as Dan put the jar down. Their children, Anna and Damian, wailed and whined and stomped and their cheeks and their eyes and their hands turned red as they tried and failed to open the jar for daddy.
Dan stood in shock, in the midst of anguished tears and panic and good-bye kisses, as Rachel tied the jar around his neck and sent him outside to the curb, alongside the slick black lumps of yesterday’s trash bags.
The neighbors stared at him through their windows. Neighbors in their homes with their partners and their children and their jobs and their kitchens and their pickle jars open on counters where decrusted sandwiches lay in peace. They stared with pity and pride.
He remembered watching his grandfather — he must have only been about eight at the time — standing at the curb, just as he was now.
The bus clanked up to the curb and sputtered to a stop. Dan walked up the steps and sat down in the first empty seat. The air smelled like rubber and metal. He slumped over, avoiding the eyes of anyone on the bus or anyone beyond the window. The engine whined and roared and the vehicle creaked on down the road.
The old man in the seat behind him began to cry. He sputtered on about how this wasn’t right and how he didn’t belong here, all the while his gnarled old fingers slipped repeatedly on the pickle jar lid that refused to loosen in his hands. In a moment of desperation, he stood up and ran toward the door. He lurched awkwardly as the bus turned, nearly falling onto the guard, who escorted him to the back of the bus and restrained him with electrical tape.
The bus arrived at the cave. All the riders were ordered to get off and strip down to their underwear. Dan noticed that everyone, like him, was wearing tighty-whities. They hiked their flab up the hill to the entrance of a cave guarded by armed men in green uniforms. The guards smirked as Dan and the others passed, carrying their pickle jars and shame into the darkness.
But that was days ago. Five? Ten? A hundred? It was impossible to tell. It was dark and wet and cold and the fetid stench was unbearable. His palms were sore from trying to open the pickle jar tied around his neck every few minutes, hanging heavily like the weight of a brigade of briny ships sinking into the depths of the sea. He clasped his hands around the lid again and squeezed and screamed and cried. He crumpled to the cave floor, hard and jagged with rocks and wet with puddles. Dan’s sobs and whimpers and sniffles echoed in the cave alongside the sobs and whimpers and sniffles of the other men, all trying with growing desperation to open the jars that hung like condemnation around their necks.
The guards would soon gather them up, he knew, to parade them out of the cave, single file, to see who was able to open their pickle jars and who was not. Dan knew what would happen if he was not able to open his jar. The remains of those who had failed told him everything he needed to know.
He wondered, at every bone he encountered, if he was reuniting with the grandfather that he’d seen depart as a child.
The sound of a siren echoed through the cave. The men shook and groaned and got to their feet, wiping wetness from their bodies. Some men clung to the walls and tried to hide in the shadows, preferring to die in darkness than to face further humiliation. Others walked toward the light, head held high — or as high as possible. Dan stepped on shaking legs out of the cave and into the blinding light.
The men in their damp underwear shimmered in the sunlight like infants slick from birth. The guards lined them up before the cave entrance and went down the line, one by one, offering each man a final chance at freedom.
The first man didn’t even try. The guard waved him away, annoyed. The man trudged back to the cave, to the darkness, to his grave.
Then there was a pop. Like the first kernel of corn popping in the microwave on movie night. An old man had done it. He fell to his knees and then collapsed completely, laying belly-down in the dirt, in the puddle of pickle juice that poured freely from his jar, weeping.
Dan was happy for him. He thought about how he might react if he could get his pickle jar open too. He could see Rachel’s face greeting him in the doorway. Anna and Damien rushing in for a hug. The feel of the backyard grass under his toes. The hum of the TV and the burble and drip of the coffee maker. He could see it. He could smell it. He could feel it.
Then it was Dan’s turn. As the guard approached, he didn’t see or hear or feel any of that anymore. He could only see himself failing. He saw his body decaying in the cave, alongside the others. Alongside his grandfather. The guard looked at Dan and nodded.
Dan took a deep breath and grasped the jar with his stinging, tired hands, and he twisted. And he squeezed. And he pulled.
He pivoted on his tired, aching feet. He reached for leverage from his legs. He pulled with his arms and his shoulders and his core and his spleen and whatever else was left from which to summon strength.
He let out a whimper that became a cry that became a shout that became a scream that became a howl, a wolf, a wish to be anywhere but here.
Then: Pop!
The jar. It was open. The smell of vinegar and spices came rushing out.
The guard simply nodded and moved to the next man.
Dan expected tears to stream from his eyes, but he had no strength left to cry. No strength left for anything but going home. He looked up and blinked in the sunlight, knowing that the darkness was, for now, behind him.
David Canning is an Emmy award-winning writer living in Brooklyn. He's been published in The Madison Review, Literally Stories and the 89th Annual Writer's Digest Awards.